NVIDIA GeForce FX5700 Ultra Review
Benchmarking: Synthetic tests
Traditionally, we start with the comprehensive 3DMark 2003. First off, we get the overall score with which we can approximately estimate the board's performance level. Of course, as applied to this benchmark we should mention all the reservations at which we repeatedly made accent in our materials. However, we can't ignore a detailed analysis of performance for the boards in this test :=).
As we see from the graph, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is a sure leader at all the resolutions. The direct competitor, ASUS Radeon 9600XT built on the ATI Radeon 9600XT chip, lags behind NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, but the lag is negligible enough. Anyway, let's look at the detailed results for 3DMark 2003.
The fillrate is one of the key characteristics of the video card that affects the performance in gaming applications. As we see, in the single-texturing mode NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is second to none. This should affect in the best way in games that do not use pixel and vertex shaders of the DX 9.0 generation.
On the contrary, the most topical mode of multi-texturing demonstrates a definite leadership of the ATI Radeon 9600XT chip. We can only guess that in this case it was the specific configuration of pixel rendering pipelines and texture units in NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra that played a leading part, which can take both 4x1 and 2x2 scheme. To the benefit of ATI Radeon 9600XT, it is the higher GPU speed. To fully find out the matter of fillrate in the multi-texturing mode (as well as compare the produced values with the theoretical possible) for both these and some other cards, we'll soon carry out additional tests with a few more benchmarking packages.
At the programmable T&L, the NVIDIA chip does a better job than ATI chips.
The sore spot of all NVIDIA's FX cards is the operation of version 2.0 pixel shaders. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra proved no exception this time even with ForceWare 53.03 installed that re-enabled NVIDIA's proprietary compiler that had been disabled with the version 340 patch in ForceWare 52.16 drivers!
 The test in the 3DMark 2003 package itself is quite interesting. The test exerts immense loads on not only the video card (each of the trolls jumping into the abyss is an object made up of 5500 polygons, plus the test uses version 1.4 shaders, and the necessity of using just this version is highly questionable, but anyway let's leave on the conscience of FutureMark =). The results of our video cards are even more interesting =). At the low resolutions, ATI Radeon 9600XT rules. But as the resolutions go up, the difference becomes leveled, and at 1600õ1200 the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra takes a lead over its rival. Hard to say which factor was decisive: the speed of processing the pixel programs or the fillrate, but the fact remains: at the low resolutions ATI is the leader, at high resolutions NVIDIA rules.
 This is the first test of the 3DMark 2003 package which take part in the overall rating for the video card. The test makes little use of pixel programs. As a result, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is a sure leader at all the resolutions.
The second test leaved the palm with NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra.
The test is more difficult than the previous one, although the versions of shaders used are the same (1.1 and 1.4, that is, the test is in fact DirectX 8.1-oriented). At that we no longer see the superiority of ATI Radeon 9600 XT in the low resolutions. However, with the rise of resolution the NVDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra wins clearly, although the difference in absolute fps values is negligible.
That is the most demanding shader-oriented of all the 3DMark 2003 tests. Used are shaders of versions 1.1, 1.4, 2.0. Here, the results for synthetic benchmarks just make themselves felt (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra didn't do a good job at version 2.0 pixel programs), and we can see the known "dislike" of NVIDIA's FX cards to version 2.0 pixel programs. The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra lags behind at all the resolutions and at performance is approximately in the interim position between ATI Radeon 9600XT and ATI Radeon 9600 Pro.
The overall score in 3DMark2001 SE shows results already familiar from 3DMark 2003. The latest solution for the Middle-End video cards based on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is a leader at all the resolutions.
The leadership of NVIDIA boards in the Codecreatures test despite the quite active use of version 1.1 pixel shaders can be explained by the intensive work NVIDIA has done at optimizing the test for FX boards. The test is also strongly dependent on the fillrate of the accelerator.
The test is old enough, however is allows to most effectively verify how well the cut-off of hidden surfaces is implemented. Well.. As we see, ATI's technologies at that are not so much better than NVIDIA's: the ATI Radeon 9600XT chip takes a lead.
The leadership at AquaMark is also with ATI Radeon 9600XT. NVIDIA's board lags behind, albeit insignificantly.
At the RightMark package, the leadership ambiguous again. On the one hand, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra rules at the low resolutions. On the other, as the resolutions go up the ATI Radeon 9600XT together with ATI Radeon 9600Pro win, and their results fully coincide.
Now we are moving on to real-world gaming applications.
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